Law Review Submissions: March “Window” and War Stories
posted by Dave Hoffman
It’s my strong sense that most law reviews are very much in gear at the moment, and that some have even finished their Spring season. (Based in part on this, and part on personal experience.) I figured I’d create a thread for journals that just started reading and are hoping for submissions, or even those that haven’t opened yet. Tell us all about it! Also, based on some inquiries, is anyone particularly looking for book reviews or essays to fill an odd cranny here or there?
Also, feel free to use the thread as a place to write about attempts to reject rejections, wheedle acceptances, or otherwise share in the madness that is the 2009 law review tournament. ™
March 8, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Posted in: Law School (Law Reviews)
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Responses (13)
[deleted] - March 9, 2009 at 5:52 pm
[I deleted an off-topic comment which said, essentially, that we ought to focus more on the job market for our students. I'll put up a separate post on that topic shortly. This particular thread is reserved for discussion of article submission this spring. -dh]
newlawprof - March 9, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Right now I’m trying to place an essay which is about 19 (law review) pages in length. As a relatively new prof, I’ve done well placing several full-length articles but I have absolutely no experience placing essays. Although quite a few journals **say** that they accept them, I’ve heard that this might not be true in practice. I’d welcome any thoughts from editors or from profs with essay placement strategies.
former AE - March 10, 2009 at 2:35 am
newlawprof,
My (top 10-20) journal last cycle tended to like the idea of an essay leading off each issue, BUT we tended to be more concerned with name recognition than with full length articles.
There was no hard and fast rule on this, mind you. But realistically, we would jump to publish a good essay by someone like Balkin, Amar, Levinson, Tonry, or Nussbaum. Someone reasonably well established (Oman? Leib? Somin?–however you want to define this) may have had a chance, but we’d have needed to love the essay… and I don’t think we saw many essays from people in that tier. A truly “new” prof, probably not, although we did publish full articles we were very happy with by professors falling into that group.
As for advice on placing yours, I’d actually wait. Later this spring, or even in September, journals will like the idea of squeezing in a few short pieces. Or at least we did–as the number of remaining committable pages grows short, the more the value of a short piece grows (would you rather have a 25 page essay and a 50 page article, or just a 75 page article? if you like all 3 equally, the former is clearly preferable).
jd - March 10, 2009 at 8:06 am
Former AE, you’re referring to the Minnesota Law Review, right?
femalelawprof - March 10, 2009 at 11:09 am
Former AE,
I am deeply troubled by your claim that “reasonably well established” newer law profs are all bloggers. It’s great that you evidently read law blogs, but please keep in mind that **male** legal scholars are FAR more likely to contribute to blogs. There are plenty of well-established newer female scholars with whom you will be unfamiliar, despite their increasing prominence among legal scholars, if you’re equating scholarly influence with blogging. This is all very dismaying to read, and just deepens my lack of confidence in student-edited law journals.
former AE - March 10, 2009 at 3:01 pm
femalelawprof,
Those names sprung to mind and also seemed most apt because we are, after all, discussing this on a law blog. Let’s assume that I had named Metzger, Hoeffel, and Tetlow instead — it doesn’t make a difference, because if a journal is weighing scholarly prominence, it’s going to check the authors’ publication records or CVs rather than rely on whose names are in the blogosphere.
(This is not to defend student-run journals generally. The flaws in the system are well documented — but no one seems to want to turn down free student labor.)
Another New Prof - March 11, 2009 at 10:11 am
I have an offer from a 20-25 journal. I’ve requested expedited review from the 1-20 set. A bunch have sent me rejection emails. The others have not. Should I request a deadline extension from the journal that made me the offer, to give the other journals more time to complete review of my manuscript? Or should I just assume that their silence is a bad sign and, therefore, I should just go with what I have? Any advice would be appreciated!
Not So New Prof - March 11, 2009 at 10:36 am
Another New Prof,
In my experience, silence is the kiss of death. Expeditee law reviews generally fall into three categories: (1) take you seriously and get back to you by your deadline (usually to ding your article, but c’est la vie); (2) tell you that they will get back to you by your deadline and don’t; or (3) utterly ignore you. I have often expedited, sometimes successfully, but I have never reached my deadline, accepted my best offer, and then heard back later from a better law review wanting to publish the article.
Sadly, many editorial boards seem to think that simply ignoring expedite requests is the easiest way to make them go away. To illustrate: this spring I got an acceptance from a Top 20-25 journal, expedited to about 13 higher ranked journals (having already been dinged at the others), got another offer from a similarly ranked journal in the interim, got an offer from a Top 10-15 journal off the expedite, got dinged by about 4 or 5 of the 13 expedites, got a nible of interest and then a ding from a Top 5 journal, was promised an answer from one journal that never got back to me, and didn’t hear anything from the rest. This is a very typical pattern in my experience.
Having been on law review and having served as my school’s law review advisor, I know that they get swamped with expedite requests. However, as I have preached to my own law review, it isn’t such a burden to send a polite ding or “we won’t be able to review the article before your deadline” e-mail, even if it is to hundreds of expeditors. It’s a small courtesy that I always appreciate when I expedite.
Good luck with your article!
getting bearings - March 11, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Where can I get basic strategy information on this stuff? That is, when are these “windows” generally, what are they, and so forth. I’m in a cognate field, and I generally submit to peer-reviewed journals, which accept stuff at any time, and time of acceptance does not bear upon likelihood of acceptance. However, I have a work in progress more suited to a law review, and I’m gathering that I need to strategize about timing in addition to where I submit and so forth. Help, please!
fmreic - March 12, 2009 at 8:18 am
getting bearings,
The two windows are Spring (roughly mid/late February to the end of classes in April) and Fall (roughly mid-August to the end of September). To get placed in a law review, you really ought to submit during one of those windows.
anon - March 12, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Here’s a factoid: it’s my sense that the top 10 journals have finally put systems in place that can deal with the increased volume generated by BePress. Five years ago, when Expresso started, I’d routinely never get answers from any of those journals, even post expedite. Now, I’ve gotten several rejections, before the expedite went to them, and in a pretty timely fashion. This is a major improvement.
Of course, NYU and Texas are still infamously bad at communicating with authors, but that’s nothing new. But everyone else is making real progress!
Shamer - March 13, 2009 at 9:07 am
On the one hand, NYU really should be shamed in public and often. It is just so damn inconsiderate. Every other journal seems to manage to find the three seconds it takes to scan the first page of your article and reject it.
Then again, maybe there is something respectful in their behavior, after all: at least they don’t pretend to have actually given your article a second’s thought.
oldprof - March 14, 2009 at 6:56 am
Texas just shifted to electronic Expresso submission. Whether that now means they will get back to authors with dings is another issue entirely.
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